Buenos Aires

1-5 September 2005

I went to Buenos Aires for a long weekend, with many fellow users of flyertalk.com.

Above and right: The view from my 16th floor hotel room window at different hours, looking north over Plaza Fuerza Aérea Argentina and Estación Retiro.

After I spent Friday walking around and taking a long nap, about 10 of us met for the first of several long meals based around a lot of beef and malbec.

Saturday morning there was a wine tasting at Terroir (a "Casa de Vinos").

Pouring the dessert wine

Freddie Jr. doesn't care what airline he's on, as long as he's in first class.

Alex was our able and enthusiastic host.

We moved on to lunch, with more beef, and more wine.

Note the modified Last Supper mural in the background, with a shirtless "Jesus" helping the "disciples" devour piles of meat.

Being a connoisseur may be mostly in the facial expressions.

Sweetbreads. Neither sweet, nor bread. Discuss.

I walked back to my hotel for a pre-dinner siesta, but toured Recoleta Cemetery on the way. Its hundreds of mostly ostentatious mausoleums hold the remains of generations of the city's rich and famous.

Not all the mausoleums are well maintained.

Although still working off the effects of lunch, it was soon time for dinner.

Is that a look of paranoia or amusement? Sometimes there's a fine line between the two.

Waiting on 30+ people was stressful for our waiter, and he spent most of the evening looking kind of worried - when he wasn't running back and forth to the kitchen.

This is the only picture of Deb that she approved of.

That's ridiculously cheap!

I spent Sunday doing more walking around the city.

Right: The opera house, modeled on Sydney's.

The subway was fun, with the different lines having technology spanning many years.

Sunday night I flew back to the US...

...and then spent Monday in New York City.

Eileen and I walked around Brooklyn and tangled with the crowds from an enormous parade.

Below: Prospect Park